


bring me back down

by prunuspersicaarchive (prunuspersica)



Series: homesickness [2]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Episode: s12e10 Dennis' Double Life, Homesickness, M/M, Mac and Dennis miss each other a LOT, MacDennis - Freeform, Mentions of Smut, Songfic, songfic for 26 by paramore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 14:34:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12301146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prunuspersica/pseuds/prunuspersicaarchive
Summary: sequel to "just give me one bad night".songfic for paramore's "26".warnings: mentions of smut, alcohol, body image issues, cryinggenre: angst, songfic





	bring me back down

**Author's Note:**

> idk why i did this...... thanks !

_ Man, you really know how to get someone down. _

_ Everything was fine before you came around. _

 

Everything was fine, or at least okay, until Dennis left. He’s sat on the couch in Dee’s apartment, on his fourth or fifth drink, the night after he realized… Dennis was really gone. He wishes for him to come back with every sip of his beer, prays with his fading beliefs for it to be a cruel joke, but he knows deep down that he’s really gone. He left. Probably changed his phone number too, just to keep Mac out of his mind. But Mac knows he can’t last long without him peeling his apples.He knows that he won’t be able to live properly without him, so it truly was a matter of time.

 

_ I’ve been chasing after dreamers in the clouds. _

_ After all, wasn’t I the one who said to keep your feet on the ground?  _

 

Or so he hopes, with the gnawing ache in his chest growing stronger and harsher with every breath. Usually he had Dennis to hold onto, to cry into his shirt, and to make out with, sloppily, at 2am, in a feeble attempt to feel better. This was much worse than anything that caused one of those nights though, he decides. Much worse. It’s time, Mac thinks to himself, to get really fucking drunk.

 

_ Man, you really brought me back down. _

 

Nothing tells Mac that Dennis would come back soon enough. He would come back eventually, but Mac is impatient. He is too impatient, he tells himself as he drowns out the feeling of missing Dennis with way too many beers. He is too needy, he tells himself as he forces himself to put his phone down so he wouldn’t even try to contact Dennis. He is in love, he tells himself as he remembers the night before, vividly and painfully.

 

_ Hold on to hope if you got it, don’t let it go for nobody. _

_ They say that dreaming is free, but I wouldn’t care what it cost me. _

 

Dennis refuses to miss Mac. He makes a mantra in his head, that he’ll be okay without Mac. He chants it over and over until it loses its little meaning. He’s trying to kill that part of himself, just like he does with everything he hates, and it never works but he always keeps trying. 

 

_ You got me tied up but I stay close to the window, _

_ And I talk to myself about the places I used to go. _

 

He wishes that he would just die right there, that all his memories of Philadelphia would just leave him forever. He tries so hard to block out every thought that fills his blue eyes with all the bitter, anxiety-filled tears of a thousand oceans. A thousand oceans of distress, of acrid tears that would never quite be the right catharsis. 

 

_ I’m hoping someday, maybe I’ll just float away, _

_ And I’ll forget every cynical thing you say. _

_ When’re you gonna hear me out?  _

 

He wishes for catharsis. He’d always put most of his faith in himself, and truly believed that he could get anything he wanted; but clearly he hadn’t worked hard enough for himself. Dennis stares at himself in the full-body mirror with his bloodshot, teary eyes. Scanning himself up and down, realizing what a mess he’d become. There are dark circles around his eyes and his lips still have a little cut on them, a bite mark from Mac a few weeks prior. His jeans are partially ripped, and he makes himself block out the memory of Mac hungrily attempting to pull them down, and them getting stuck on the sharp corner of Dee’s counter. He can’t think about all the times Mac had sucked him off in the kitchenette now. He’s a father.

 

_ Man, you really bring me down.  _

 

Dennis picks at the scab on his lip, mindlessly hoping for it to bleed and snap him right out of his pain. He pulls his dark grey shirt up a little, staring half-intently at the small layer of pudge that had formed on his stomach. He feels guilty, sick, and useless, and he knows that he was never going to keep his incredible physique forever, but he could dream. He pulls the thick fabric up further, seeing the fading purplish bruises that were yet another memory of Mac to block out to keep him from breaking.

 

_ Hold on to hope if you got it, don’t let it go for nobody. _

_ They say that dreaming is free, but I wouldn’t care what it cost me. _

 

Mac can’t keep track of how many drinks he’s had now, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything anymore, he decides, and glances over to every spot he remembers Dennis in. The red-printed curtains and the counter in the kitchenette where he accidentally ripped Dennis’ jeans haunt him with looming memories of Dennis, and the way he would kiss him, and the way he was always so bittersweetly comforting even at the worst of times. 

 

_ Reality will break your heart, survival will not be the hardest part. _

 

Dennis pokes and prods at the lovebites Mac left on him, the dull pain of the bruises resembling the ache in his chest. Mac’s chest tightens every time he thinks about Dennis, and he’s the only thing on his mind. Dennis feels the same suffocating pain in his chest, and his mind, every time he fails to block out a memory of Mac. He’s denying the obvious at this point: they were in love. And he hopes they still are, they still will be, they will be forever. He doesn’t want to break, though. He doesn’t know what he wants more, Mac, or to hold together.

 

_ It’s keeping all your hopes alive when all the rest of you has died. _

_ So let it break your heart. _

 

Mac’s drunkenness is in full swing now, and he’s crying. He’s praying that nobody comes in, or hears him, because if there’s one thing he doesn’t want, it’s Charlie, Dee, and Frank all knowing everything. That he was crying over Dennis, now that was enough in itself but he knows that they all would be able to put together Mac’s hair never being as messy as it was after a 15-minute “conversation” with Dennis as opposed to someone else. They would decipher that he was fully, completely, truly, in love with Dennis Reynolds.

 

_ And hold on to hope if you got it, don’t let it go for nobody. _

_ Hold on to hope if you got it, don’t let it go for nobody. _

 

Dennis wipes his silent tears with the sleeve of his shirt. The mirror mocks him now, he’s crying in front of it for God’s sake. He does the same thing with every memory coming to him: push them away and lock them up. They do no good, he tells himself. He’s a new man now, and he won’t succumb to what he does want more, which is to go back to Mac. He hates Mac, he hates him. He repeats that to himself like the last mantra till it loses its power, but deep down he knows he’ll never really get to believe it. He hates Mac, sure, but beyond that, he is fully, completely, truly, in love with him.

 

_ They say that dreaming is free, I wouldn’t care what it cost me. _


End file.
